فَرَجَعَ مُوسَىٰٓ إِلَىٰ قَوْمِهِۦ غَضْبَٰنَ أَسِفًا
Fa-rajaʿa Mūsā ilā qawmihi ghaḍbāna asifā, qāla yā qawmi alam yaʿidkum rabbukum waʿdan ḥasanā, a-fa-ṭāla ʿalaykumu'l-ʿahdu am aradtum an yaḥilla ʿalaykum ghaḍabun min rabbikum fa-akhlaftum mawʿidī · Qālū mā akhlafnā mawʿidaka bi-malkinā wa lākinnā ḥummilnā awzāran min zīnati'l-qawmi fa-qadhafnāhā fa-kadhālika alqa's-sāmiriyy · Fa-akhraja lahum ʿijlan jasadan lahu khuwārun fa-qālū hādhā ilāhukum wa ilāhu Mūsā fa-nasiya · A-fa-lā yarawna allā yarjiʿu ilayhim qawlan wa lā yamliku lahum ḍarran wa lā nafʿā
"Moses returned to his people angry and grieved. 'My people! Did your Lord not make you a good promise? Did the term seem long to you, or did you want an anger from your Lord to settle upon you, that you broke your promise to me?' he said. · They said: 'We did not break our promise to you of our own will; but we were made to carry loads of the people's ornaments, and we threw them in. The Sāmirī likewise threw.' · Then he brought out for them a calf, a body with a lowing sound. 'This is your god and the god of Moses,' they said; but he forgot. · Did they not see that it returned them no word and had no power over them to harm or to benefit?"
غَضْبَان — root غ-ض-ب: anger. The pattern faʿlān — in Arabic this measure conveys a state that fills a person and overflows him (jawʿān — writhing with hunger, ghaḍbān — filled with anger).
أَسِف — root أ-س-ف: a state in which grief and anger are present together. The lexicographers explain the word as intense sorrow or as anger born of helplessness; that it is a combination of the two is also recorded. The word occurs at Yūsuf 12/84 as well (yā asafā ʿalā Yūsuf).
I record this as an observation: the text records the state of the returning man in two words — and the second does not leave the anger standing alone. Grief is named beside the anger.
And this is the ground of the answer Aaron will give in the ninety-fourth verse: that answer is a sentence spoken to an angry man.
The people's answer has three parts, and the first must be recorded: mā akhlafnā mawʿidaka bi-malkinā.
The root م-ل-ك: to own, to hold in one's hand. Malk — "as something in our own hands", that is, of our own will.
I record this as an observation: the answer is trying to present the event as outside their own will. And the two sentences that follow complete this: ḥummilnā (we were made to carry — passive) and fa-kadhālika alqa's-sāmiriyy (the Sāmirī likewise threw).
That is, all three elements of the answer carry the responsibility somewhere else: an absence of will, a passive verb, and someone else's example. This is a structure that can be verified from the text.
أَوْزَار — the plural of wizr, root و-ز-ر: a heavy load. The same root was treated in the discussion of the word wazīr in the twenty-ninth verse. And the choice of the word is worth recording: ornaments are named as "loads".
| Word | What it conveys |
|---|---|
| ʿIjl | A calf — the shape of the thing |
| Jasad | A body, a hulk — an object without spirit |
| Lahu khuwār | Having a lowing — the sound it made |
The word jasad must be recorded: in Arabic jasad is used of a body without a spirit. That is, in describing the object the verse says by its very word that it is not alive.
خُوَار — root خ-و-ر: the lowing of cattle. The word occurs in the Qurʾān only here and at al-Aʿrāf 7/148.
How the sound came about is not stated in the Qurʾān. Various explanations are transmitted in the classical commentaries (a contrivance through which wind passed, a trick, or other accounts). This commentary does not go into them; the text is silent.
What can be verified from the text is this, and I record it: the verse names the sound not as a miracle but as a property of the object — and immediately afterwards it asks how much use that sound was: allā yarjiʿu ilayhim qawlan.
This is the most disputed point in the sentence, and the disagreement must not be concealed. Fa-nasiya — "he forgot". Its subject is not stated.
| Reading | Who nasiya is | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Sāmirī | He forgot his own condition, or the truth, or what is right |
| 2 | The Sāmirī — nisyān here in the sense of "he abandoned" | He left the right way |
| 3 | Those who worshipped the calf | They forgot what Moses had told them |
But I record a datum of the text: the root ن-س-ي is one of the spines of this sūra (52, 88, 115, 126 — tabulated in the treatment of 20/49-52). And the occurrence here is the second link of that chain. That is, on whichever reading, the sūra has named the affair of the calf with the word nisyān — and in the hundred and fifteenth verse it will name the story of Adam with the same word.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the second construct: the deviation here is framed not as a denial but as a displacement. The same god is claimed — only he is attached to a visible object. And the question of the eighty-ninth verse comes down on precisely this point: that object can neither answer, nor benefit, nor harm.
The same measure was treated at al-Anbiyāʾ, at al-Shuʿarāʾ on 26/72-73 and at al-Ṣāffāt (hal yasmaʿūnakum idh tadʿūn · aw yanfaʿūnakum aw yaḍurrūn). I rely on those treatments: the measure is hearing, and benefit and harm. Ṭāhā adds one further item to this measure: allā yarjiʿu ilayhim qawlan — the inability to return a word.